“I am going to speak as a gay man, one of the things about gay male culture is it is not a monogamous culture… There are many longstanding gay relationships, there are virtually no long standing monogamous gay relationships. I happen to think that is a good thing… I would love to have the people out there arguing for same-sex marriage say ‘let’s be clear, marriage is about primary emotional commitment to another person and it doesn’t mean I won’t f**k around’. And that’s what most of us mean when we talk about our relationships and I think it would be really helpful if the same-sex marriage movement had enough guts to say that.”

Mr Shelton said the attitude of high profile gay men towards marriage should be allowed to be discussed without fear of demonization.

“If there is going to a referendum in the life of the next parliament then there needs to be respect and tolerance for people who wish to make arguments for preserving marriage,” Mr Shelton said.